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But it is objectively retarded

No need to get so salty over a playoff involving college football of all things. You may think FSU's strength of schedule was superior or equivalent to Alabama's, but the committee itself stated otherwise. Given how poll-driven and potentially arbitrary beliefs about 'team strength' are in Division I football, speaking about "objective retardation" in this context is rather silly.

But strength of schedule in a Power 5 context should never allow teams with losses to jump over undefeated conference champions.

Unfortunately, that has never been an objective rule that the CFP selection committee ever claimed to officially abide by, at least as far as I'm aware.

They do not take into account the various polls (at least formally) in their rankings. Even when the four-team playoff was announced years ago, they fully admitted that "choosing the teams will include record, strength of schedule, conference championships, and factors that might have influenced a team's play, such as injuries and weather". As far as I know, they have never publicly provided the criteria by which a one-loss team is deemed 'better' than an undefeated team, Power Five or no.

This year, the committee explicitly said that in terms of the final rankings, strength-of-schedule and Jordan Travis's injury were the reasons why they put Alabama ahead of FSU. You may not like it (a lot of people sure don't), but that was their rationale.

(To be fair, I'm not as incensed by this sort of apparent 'arbitrariness' because this is a sport where, in living memory, 'national champions' were determined by polls...which led to numerous situations where two, three, or more teams could justifiably claim they were the #1 team in that year.)

Anyhow, these are the 2023 members of the Selection Committee:

If you're that incensed on Florida State's behalf, take it up with them.

This year, the committee explicitly said that in terms of the final rankings, strength-of-schedule and Jordan Travis's injury were the reasons why they put Alabama ahead of FSU. You may not like it (a lot of people sure don't), but that was their rationale.

I will agree with you. The Selection Committee functions very much like Eric Cartman when he started his Crack Baby Basketball League:

We don't make the rules. We just think them up and write them down.

They made the "rules" so obscure, numerous, and malleable that they could craft whatever matchups they wanted that would yield the greatest financial benefit, and then use propaganda throughout ESPN to push the narrative.

And the propaganda clearly works. Just look at the people here defending Alabama's strength of schedule, even though any honest look at comparing strength of schedule in the context of record totally falls apart.

The idea that you would withhold a team because of injuries on its roster, regardless of whether the injured player was a Heisman candidate or not, is ludicrous and retarded. Alabama once benched it starting QB in the middle of a national championship game!

I can't think of any other instance where this has ever happened in any sport in the history of mankind; denying an entire team a deserved postseason opportunity because of an injury to one player. An injury that they persevered through with a rivalry road win AND a conference championship. It's shameful. It's retarded, and the people defending it sound retarded by defending what is clearly indefensible.

Richard Sherman is 100% right here. It goes against the idea of the underdog, and pads the belly of the fat-cat who skated in because of politics.

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